Perfectionistic self-presentation in children and adolescents: Development and validation of the Perfectionistic Self-Presentation Scale—Junior Form.

Research on adults indicates that perfectionistic self-presentation, the interpersonal expression of one's perfection, is associated with a variety of psychopathological outcomes independent of trait perfectionism and Big Five traits. The current article reports on the development and evidence for the validity of the subtest score interpretations of an 18-item self-report measure of perfectionistic self-presentation for children and adolescents. Analyses conducted on data from two clinical samples and one nonclinical sample of children and adolescents found that the Perfectionistic Self-Presentation Scale—Junior Form (PSPS–Jr) reflected a multidimensional model of perfectionistic self-presentation with three subscales: Perfectionistic Self Promotion, Nondisplay of Imperfection, and Nondisclosure of Imperfection. The subscale scores were found to demonstrate internal consistency, and there was good evidence supporting the validity of the interpretation of subscale scores based on this new measure. The subscales were associated with maladaptive outcomes, but were not influenced unduly by biases that included social desirability and differential item functioning by gender. Overall, the PSPS-Jr appears to be a useful measure of the expression of perfection among youths and an important tool in attempting to understand the nature and the consequences of perfectionistic self-presentation in children and adolescents. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Empagliflozin Treatment Attenuates Hepatic Steatosis by Promoting White Adipose Expansion in Obese TallyHo Mice

Sodium-glucose co-transporters (SGLTs) serve to reabsorb glucose in the kidney. Recently, these transporters, mainly SGLT2, have emerged as new therapeutic targets for patients with diabetes and kidney disease; by inhibiting glucose reabsorption, they promote glycosuria, weight loss, and improve glucose tolerance. They have also been linked to cardiac protection and mitigation of liver injury. However, to date, the mechanism(s) by which SGLT2 inhibition promotes systemic improvements is not fully appreciated. Using an obese TallyHo mouse model which recapitulates the human condition of diabetes and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), we sought to determine how modulation of renal glucose handling impacts liver structure and function. Apart from an attenuation of hyperglycemia, Empagliflozin was found to decrease circulating triglycerides and lipid accumulation in the liver in male TallyHo mice. This correlated with lowered hepatic cholesterol esters. Using in vivo MRI analysis, we further determined that the reduction in hepatic steatosis in male TallyHo mice was associated with an increase in nuchal white fat indicative of “healthy adipose expansion”. Notably, this whitening of the adipose came at the expense of brown adipose tissue. Collectively, these data indicate that the modulation of renal glucose handling has systemic effects and may be useful as a treatment option for NAFLD and steatohepatitis.     

Parallel algorithms for boundary value problems

In the present paper we discuss a general approach to solve boundary value problems numerically in a parallel environment. The basic algorithm consists of two steps: the local step, where all the P available processors work in parallel, and the global step, where one processor solves a tridiagonal linear system of the order P. The main advantages of this approach are twofold: First, this suggested approach is very flexible, especially in the local step, and thus the algorithm can be used with any number of processors and with any of the SIMD or MIMD machines. Second, the communication complexity is very small and thus can be used as easily with shared memory machines. Several examples uing this strategy are discussed.     

Comparing Windows NT,Linux, and QNX as the basis for cluster systems

Clusters use commodity hardware and software components to provide an environment for high-performance parallel processing. A major issue in the development of a cluster system is the choice of the operating system that will run on each node. We compare three alternatives: Windows NT, Linux, and QNX—a real-time microkernel. The comparison is based on expressive power, performance, and ease-of-use metrics. The result is that none of these systems has a clear advantage over the others in all the metrics, but that each has its strong and weak points. Thus any choice of a base system will involve some technical compromises, but not major ones. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Interrupted‐Burning Tests of Plasma‐Ignited JA2 and M30 Grains in a Closed Chamber

Enhanced burning of plasma‐ignited propellants has been deduced in recent years from closed bomb pressure traces. The question remains, however, whether the enhanced burning is inherent or possibly the result of propellant grain fracture. To find out, interrupted and non‐interrupted burning tests were conducted with cylindrical perforated grains of JA2 and M30 in a closed bomb with a loading density of approximately 0.2 g/cm³. Both, conventional black powder and plasma igniters were used, and a few tests were carried out with the propellants cooled to −20 °C. The plasma igniter was an ablating capillary, and the electrical energy density was about 0.7 kJ/g of propellant. The diameters of the collected grains yielded the actual burn distance at the time of the interrupted burning. The experimental pressure traces and the conventional burn rate coefficients of the propellants were used to calculate the theoretical depth burned assuming no plasma‐induced burn rate modifications. From overlapping pressure traces at several interrupted pressures, and from comparison to the calculated versus measured burn distances, it was found that there is burn rate enhancement during the plasma pulse–but not much once the pulse has ended. In contrast to the JA2 burn rates, both ambient and cold M30 burn rates, deduced from the non‐interrupted tests using the BRLCB code, were enhanced even after the plasma turn‐off, thus contradicting the interrupted‐tests results. However, vivacity analysis of the non‐interrupted tests indicated that the M30 grains exhibited increased surface area (possible fragmentation) because of the plasma interaction–an effect that would cause erroneous results from the BRLCB. Indeed, simulation of the non‐interrupted M30 tests using the XNOVAKTC code, and assuming partial fragmentation of the propellant charge, yielded vivacities that mimicked the experimental ones.     

Modal analysis and improvement of lightweight wings for micro air vehicle (MAV) applications

Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology - Micro air vehicles (MAVs) are small portable flying machines designed to perform some specific tasks. Presently, the MAVs are being highly considered...     

Collective communication: theory,practice, and experience

We discuss the design and high‐performance implementation of collective communications operations on distributed‐memory computer architectures. Using a combination of known techniques (many of which were first proposed in the 1980s and early 1990s) along with careful exploitation of communication modes supported by MPI, we have developed implementations that have improved performance in most situations compared to those currently supported by public domain implementations of MPI such as MPICH. Performance results from a large Intel Xeon/Pentium 4 (R) processor cluster are included. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.